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Qantas rejigs flights to US to bolster market share

Jamie Freed

Seeking to cut costs, Qantas is retiming flights so planes spend less time on the ground. Photo: Glenn Hunt

Qantas will look to cut costs in its international division by retiming some of its flights to the US so that its aircraft spend more time in the air and less on the ground.

It also plans to bolster its dominant position in the trans-Pacific market by adding more flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles and Sydney to Santiago.

The airline has said it will cut $1 billion - or one-third - of the controllable costs in its international division over the next three years. Only about $200 million of those savings have been outlined to date.

Qantas International chief executive Simon Hickey said the airline was introducing a new approach to aircraft utilisation to take advantage of market opportunities. The company has already increased the hours flown by its A380s and its 737s in the domestic division through schedule changes this year, such as retiming its Melbourne-Dubai-London flights.

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"Aircraft are one of our biggest fixed costs, so we continue to look for opportunities across our network to generate revenue and increase services for customers," Mr Hickey said.

The adjustments to the trans-Pacific schedule announced on Friday will result in one of its two Sydney-Los Angeles flights shifting from a morning to an evening departure. Qantas will also add three weekly flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles departing in the evening on Wednesday, Friday and Sunday from January 21.

The capacity increase comes as Virgin Australia recently announced it would withdraw its three weekly Melbourne-Los Angeles 777 flights from October in favour of a daily offering on the Brisbane-Los Angeles route. United Airlines will launch new 787-9 flights from Melbourne to Los Angeles around the same time.

The new Qantas evening departures mean the Sydney and Melbourne flights - both on Boeing 747s - will arrive in Los Angeles at 2:10pm and 3pm, respectively. They will make it more difficult for same-day connections to the US east coast, but will possibly reduce jet lag for travellers planning to remain in Los Angeles or other west coast destinations. Qantas also offers a Sydney-Dallas flight with east coast connection options.

Virgin had once flown its 777s from Sydney to Los Angeles with an evening departure but later shifted to a morning departure due to the difficulty of making connections to the east coast. United Airlines and Delta Air Lines flights also depart in the morning on the Sydney-Los Angeles route, so Qantas's schedule offering will be unique. It could also prove more convenient for connecting passengers from Adelaide and Perth.

All of Qantas' flights returning to Australia will continue to depart from Los Angeles in the evening, arriving back in Australia in the morning.

In another change, the airline will now operate a Brisbane-Los Angeles-New York flight with a 747, rather than using the Sydney-Los Angeles 747 to continue onto New York. Qantas has therefore moved up the departure time of its A380 from Sydney to Los Angeles to 9:50am. That means passengers continuing to New York will fly in an A380 on the first leg and a 747 on the second leg.

On the Sydney-Santiago route, Qantas plans to introduce a fourth weekly 747 flight from February 20.

The announcement comes as investors and staff are seeking more clarity around how Qantas will cut its international costs so drastically. More details are expected to be announced alongside the release of its annual results on Thursday.

Qantas is understood to have invited the Australian Council of Trade Unions for a meeting after results, with the invitation expected to be extended by the ACTU to other union leaders. The Qantas management team regularly meets with unions after the release of its results.

Three key unions contacted on Friday said they had yet to receive an invitation to the meeting.

However, a spokesman for the Transport Workers Union said: "We will certainly be proactively making our views known."